FCP Tip #003: Remap your keyboard, change your life. (Dramatic much?)

One of the benefits of having worked on Avid, Final Cut Pro and Media 100 is that I've gotten exposure to different ways of doing things.  Avid got some things right, Media 100 kinda happened and FCP made some marked improvements to non linear editing, no one can deny that.(Although they certainly try in an effort to kill time while the beach ball is spinning.)

There are a few places where FCP's keyboard shortcuts don't work for me and here's how I fixed them.  The first set of keyboard shortcuts I decided to modify are the "go to in" and "go to out".  My editing style has me going to my in and out points hundreds of time per day and I think it's just absurd to have to hold down a modifyer key to go to these points. (Stock FCP setup is shift+I and shift+O).  It completely destroys my rhythm. (I edit like I'm playing a drum machine at times)  To fix this shortcoming, I have taken a page from the Avid keyboard layout and have re-mapped the Q and W buttons to "go to in" and "go to out" respectively.  If you've been on FCP for a while you might already be used to the default functions of those buttons, but I did this remap early on before I ever knew what Q and W did in FCP so it was a non-issue.  Plus, if you bounce back between Avid and FCP, like I do, it makes the first hour after crossing over much less painful. (A scented candle can be nice too)

The second life-improving re-map I did was to the X key.  I'm not sure what the heck it does in it's default setting, but I do know that it doesn't do what I'd like it to do.  I could never get it to really work like Avid's mark clip button, but I've found something that's pretty good.  I've remapped it with the "mark selection" function. You can search for it in the keyboard layout window, it's in there trust me.  "Mark selection" sets and in and out point around the in and out points of a selected clip in your sequence.  Very handy out of the gate, click on a clip, hit X and you've got an in and out to replace it or cut something into your timeline above or below it.  But wait, there's more.  If you select multiple clips, it will mark an in and out across the entire range of clips you've selected enabling you to fill all sorts of holes you'd otherwise have to painstakingly mark manually.  Oh, the places you will go with your X key my little one.  Try it out and let me know what you think.